Stamping is often a popular activity with preschoolers, and adding alphabet stamps to creative play as a child begins to show interest in letters provides the opportunity for a natural progression to learning about the alphabet. Take this learning even further with this collection of ten alphabet stamping activities for preschool and kindergarten.
Letter stamps are a fabulous alphabet resource to use with children in preschool, kindergarten and beyond as children in the early grades of school can use the stamps and these alphabet activities with spelling and sight words instead of letters to reinforce learning.
10 Alphabet Stamping Activities for Preschool & Kindergarten
1. Create an invitation to stamp with a stamping match: On a large sheet of paper create the invitation by randomly stamping a collection of single letters across the page. Set up the stamps and stamp pad alongside the paper and invite your child to stamp the same letter next to each of yours as a stamping matching activity.
2. Stamp playdough: Use clean stamps (no ink) to stamp impressions into smoothly rolled playdough or smoothed putty.
This can be made into a simple alphabet game, “Can you find the c stamp and stamp a c in the dough?” Or you can invite your child to stamp their name, or to stamp spelling or sight words they are learning.
3. Smoothing letters: Use your stamped letters or words to play a hiding game that also exercises the muscles of the fingers! Identify a previously stamped letter for your child to find and hide. To hide it they need to smooth the playdough or putty with their finger
For more activities that strengthen hand and finger muscles and co-ordination, check out our collection of 21 Silly Putty & Therapy Putty Activities.
4. Alphabet memory matching game: To make your very own super cool matching game stamp pairs of letters onto small card pieces, or for a fun twist, stamp inside a collection of flat sea shells.
To play, shuffle the cards and spread them face down on the table, or turn all of the shells letter side down and arrange randomly on the table top.
Players take turns to turn over two cards or shells, searching for the matching letters. If the letters on the cards/shells selected are a match, the player keeps the matching pair and takes another turn. If they are not the same, the cards/shells are turned back over and play moves to the next player. Once all cards/shells have been matched, the player with the most letter pairs wins the game.
RELATED: For our pick of over 30 of the best letter learning activities, check out our Hands-On Alphabet Games & Activities for 3-6 Year Olds resource.
5. Pattern making: Stamp patterns with alphabet stamps onto long strips of paper, for example, AAB AAB AAB.
6. Alphabet rocks: Make a set of alphabet rocks by stamping your letter stamps with ink or acrylic paint onto stones. Seal with a spray sealant once dry to protect. There are so many way to play with alphabet rocks, see our post, 9 Alphabet Games to Play with DIY Alphabet Stones, for inspiration.
7. Kinetic sand stamping: Try stamping onto kinetic sand. The sand holds the stamped imprint so well! Via Picklebums.
8. Have a stamping race: Choose a word (a name, spelling word, sight word, etc) and race each other to be the first to finish stamping it correctly.
9. Make a clay letter alphabet: Use your stamps to make your very own clay letter alphabet. Via Sugar Aunts.
10. Cookie stamping: Dedicate a set of small letter stamps to kitchen adventures and stamp your cookies before baking.
For more fun ideas for alphabet learning, check out these related articles:
Christie Burnett is a teacher, presenter, writer and the mother of two. She created Childhood 101 as a place for teachers and parents to access engaging, high quality learning ideas.
